The Weather Changed

The weather changed
from that cold sunlight
babies in palm frond hats
crying girls
starfish hands & painted buckets

filled with sealight & breaking
glass possibilities
We woke with salt lips
lust a silica statement
gritty & sifting
in every crevice, in my long hair

Now jars of beach glass
smooth edges
grown children
I don't show the scars.

Love the Crevice

In this insistent summer light
I am rehearsing adultery, the naked
sun heating your bare legs. Yes, all night

your wife has covered you. The lake
seems very pure now, our children floating
on bits of rubber, bright as sucked

candies. The sweetness isn't faked, but
don't trust me here. The snowmelt
brings flood again this year, scouring

the last rare flowers from the edge.
Love, the crevice is very near. Falling
still I watch your mouth, your beautiful

slipping feet

To Give Everything Away

Perpetual beginner, it was love
you wanted to tie to all the worlds

patterns of fir trees & sunlight
running stitches & knots

donkeys browsing the hearts
of thistles. You sewed certainty

across the lifelines of your children
the prayer rugs of desire

At this distance we can cover
everything with our outstretched hands

the moon, the home, a childhood
of whispered secrets, oh goodbye

we learn to give everything away
here on these moving waters


Last summer I thought I'd tuck many of my poems here--and then we moved the shop, and then my computer died, and my files were lost...Time intercedes, life crowds in. It's been...3 years? 4? since my sister-outlaw died, telling me with her last breaths that it was all okay, it was all right, and how beautiful the flowers were.